


smoothing the edges

by unraelated



Series: Until I am Whole [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Aliases, Anal Sex, Bottom Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd, Hair Dyeing, M/M, Riding, Selectively mute, Top Claude von Riegan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-01-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:08:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22138342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unraelated/pseuds/unraelated
Summary: Dimiclaude week, day four: "Scars"Epilogue to Sharply Broken Creatures.Now in Almyra, Dimitri and Claude put the pieces back together.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Series: Until I am Whole [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1593496
Comments: 14
Kudos: 307





	smoothing the edges

**Author's Note:**

> While this might make some sense as a standalone, you should probably read Sharply Broken Creatures to get a feel for why they ended up like this. Thank you!

Claude was right: Dimitri _does_ look good with dark hair.

Though, he thinks that Dimitri would look good in just about anything. He certainly seems to pull off the Almyran fashion well, and when Claude looks at him like this, standing quietly in the cool light of the early evening, he feels like maybe Dimitri belongs here. Like he was always going to end up here, standing on Claude’s balcony with his dark hair hanging loose below his chin and his shoulders wide in the thin linens of his borrowed clothing.

He still rarely speaks, though Claude was finally able to coax the muzzle off of him on their trip back, his thumb brushing along Dimitri’s jaw, his eyes on Dimitri’s own as he leaned in to kiss him truly, for the first time.

He stays near Claude always and Claude is fine with that - separation seems to give him anxiety and make him more prone to lashing out and so Claude is more than content to have Dimitri nearby at all times. Dimitri may have lost most of his muscle mass in the Enbarr prison, but he’s still _tall_ , and with his missing eye and the haunted way he can just _stare_ at people, he’s imposing enough that Claude grows to enjoy his presence and the effect it has on people who try to meet with him to discuss business or treaties. His guests always negotiate with one careful eye on the towering figure of Dimitri in the corner of the room staring toward Claude, and Claude feels like he’s gotten away with better deals as a result.

Dimitri, meanwhile, lives. He curls into Claude’s bed at night, reaches a hand to touch him, and lets Claude do what he likes to him. He lets Claude guide him into the bath house with henna, lets Claude slowly brush it through his hair and watches as the water swirls a dark brown, he lets Claude’s fingers trickle over the various scars he’s accumulated and goes tense, but never retaliates or fights back when Claude touches at the marks that Hubert and his people left behind.

There are three of them, and from Hubert’s book Claude can begin to glean their purpose: a dark spiral on the hollow of his shoulder, for causing exquisite pain without bodily harm when the right magic was pressed into it, an inverted crest between his shoulderblades, just below the knob of his neck, which serves to block his crest activation, and a thin black line across the eyelid of his missing eye, done prior to the removal of it in the ritual which had something to do with the now-dead Blaiddyd elite.

Nothing which causes muteness or subservience, but Claude thinks that there was no magic involved in Dimitri’s current demeanor, just pain and trauma stretched over the last five years.

He doesn’t offer Dimitri any more of _that_ , not since the attempted strangulation in Enbarr, though he doesn’t have as much time to gentle Dimitri as he would like. Even with creating a new coalition to rule over Fódlan, there’s still Almyra to tend to, still the border agreements to open up and negotiate, and still a neverending list of things he must do before his goals are accomplished.

Dimitri lingers alongside him throughout like a shadow, and while his similarity to the late-king of Faerghus had been noted once or twice, it was easy enough to wave off with a laugh.

 _It’s funny you say that_ , Claude would chuckle, _I actually went to school with the Blaiddyd heir, did you know?_

The conversation would shift then, back to his Academy days, where he’d offer a jaunty tale of his to distract his audience, and the question of Dimitri’s true origins would be lost in the idle chatter.

Dimitri never objects to Claude talking about their shared history at Garreg Mach; as far as they’re both concerned, the boys who went there are dead now, replaced by these husks of men who can do little but try to keep one another warm.

Still, it’s nice to think back on it every once in awhile. Claude thinks on it now as he parts the thin fabric leading out to the balcony and follows Dimitri outside.

The taller man is looking over the city, his expression flat and unreadable as he watches the dying light of the sun cast its final blessing along the great kingdom of Almyra. Claude considers him for a moment and steps up beside him, following his gaze out along the rooftops.

“Damir,” he murmurs Dimitri’s new given name to get his attention, though it’s just the two of them. Claude has not uttered Dimitri’s birth name since the day he took him from Enbarr, and he thinks that he never will again - too many ears listening, too many consequences for anyone overhearing the wrong thing.

He wants to say it sometimes, when he’s alone, staring up at the ceiling, when Dimitri’s soft breath is puffing across his chest. He wants to say it - _Dimitri, Dimitri, Dimitri_ \- but he never does. He has too much self control for that.

Dimitri looks back toward him and steps aside to allow Claude the room to move next to him, which Claude takes graciously. He leans on his elbows and looks over the view, though his mind is more on the man next to him than it is the Almyran sunset, though it’s quite beautiful to see.

“You’ve had a good day?” he asks, and doesn’t expect much more than a nod, which Dimitri offers readily. Claude folds his hands in front of him, sliding unsubtly closer to Dimitri so he can tilt his chin to glance back up toward his face.

Even after everything that’s been done to him, Dimitri is handsome. He’s every bit as attractive as he was in his school days, and whatever had been done to him, whatever dug its claws into his mind and left marks on his psyche, it hurt him in a way that only drew Claude closer, recognizing the same pain he carried in himself.

Their bond is that, maybe: two broken people, trying to keep living another day. Claude as the most powerful man on the continent, and Dimitri as his biggest secret.

Eventually Dimitri turns back toward him and leans in, kissing him softly and Claude returns it, threading his fingers in his darkened hair. He doesn’t care that he’s on the balcony, that anyone could look up to see him: Damir is his consort, this sort of thing is allowed between them, even if they aren’t very affectionate around others.

Claude looks up at him when the kiss breaks and he feels like he could fall in love.

“I have to go back to Fódlan,” Claude tells him, glancing away. Dimitri stiffens, his brows furrowed, and Claude runs his fingers along the back of his neck, affectionate, possessive. “Just for a few days. I can’t bring you with me - someone might recognize you. Do you think you can stay here?”

Dimitri shakes his head, his fingers sliding into the front of Claude’s shirt, tangling around the loose fabric. Claude hums, pulling him closer, backing up on his feet to steer the taller man back indoors, back where they can both feel a little more safe.

“It won’t be long. You can stay in my room the whole time. I’ll have people bring you food, water, anything you might need.” Claude insists, moving back for the bed and nudging them around, so that he can push Dimitri down onto it.

Dimitri shakes his head again, clinging at Claude’s shirt.

“You won’t have to talk to anyone,” he promises softly, “I’ll lock you in if you want.”

He can see Dimitri’s hesitation, the knowledge that yes, he both understands that Claude must go and that Claude is trying to make the separation as painless as possible. He doesn’t respond for a moment but then slowly nods, opening his mouth wordlessly as if to make him a promise, but not speaking in the end.

Claude knows what he wants to say anyway. He always knows.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, sliding in closer and allowing Dimitri to envelop him, feeling the warmth from Dimitri’s hands around him, Dimitri’s tentative grip so different now from the raging he’s done in the past. He’s careful now, a tamed beast, and doesn’t want to hurt anyone anymore.

Claude understands the feeling, on his knees over Dimitri on the bed. He looks down, hunching over him and gentling him back, back, further until Dimitri’s shoulders hit the mattress and Claude is straddling him, shifting his hips and rocking against Dimitri with an easy slide.

Dimitri lets out a soft murmur of appreciation, reaching up for Claude’s hips and wrapping his fingers around the edge of his hipbones, his one eye looking half-lidded and lazy up toward him. Neither of them are hard yet, but it’s nice to touch and feel a warm body beneath his own, comforting to have hands slip up and grasp at him, to ease him along.

“I’ll think of you every night when I’m gone,” Claude promises in a soft whisper, rocking against him, feeling the firming bulk of Dimitri’s cock, poorly hidden in his too-loose pants, “how you feel against me, how sweet your mouth is… maybe I’ll ask you not to touch yourself while I’m away, just so it can be that much sweeter when I get back.”

He leans over, latching his mouth on Dimitri’s throat and he can feel the earnest twitch of hips under him, the affirmation that Claude’s proposal _is_ very much interesting. His lips carve into a smile on Dimitri’s neck and he bites down - not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough so that Dimitri knows he’s there.

“Would you like that?” He asks, pulling back to look into Dimitri’s eye, “do you want me to take my time with you? I’d lay you out like the finest meal, take you apart, show you just what I’ve been thinking of…”

Dimitri groans soft in the back of his throat and presses his hips upward again, now needier than he had before. Claude’s mouth quirks into a smile and he pulls back just long enough for Dimitri to use his grip on Claude’s hips to roll the two of them, shifting his legs so that he’s straddling Claude’s thighs instead.

Claude reaches a hand up and brushes back the hair from his eye, smiling softly and allowing Dimitri to pull at his shirt, opening it like he might open a gift and sliding it down Claude’s shoulders.

His mouth falls upon him then, like Claude’s mouth was on him earlier, but instead of going for his throat Dimitri mouths at his collarbone where the tip of his scarring is.

Claude opens his eyes wide - sensitive and shivering as Dimitri delicately traces the path that the Creator Sword gouged into his torso with his tongue, kissing over the white knotted scar and making Claude shiver with need.

“D-Damir,” he says breathily, rolling up into him, his eyes closed as he presses his hardening cock into the space between Dimitri’s legs, “I want to - “

Dimitri opens an eye and peers up at him from where his mouth is working, his chin tilted so that he can watch Claude’s reaction, listen to what he wants, be there for him, and Claude swallows thickly and continues.

“- I want to fuck you,” he tells him, a hand moving down for Dimitri’s hair to thread his fingers through it again, “can you get the oil, lover?”

He nods and has to move away from Claude’s scar to do it but to be honest, it’s probably for the best. It’s sensitive and the memory of Byleth’s cold eyes as she slashed through him is still visceral for him, still hurts despite Dimitri’s gentle affections pressed against it.

Dimitri brings the oil back to him and helps Claude open it, scrambling gracelessly to pull at his pants and get them off, legs spread wide enough over Claude’s hips that Claude can reach a slickened finger down to press at his hole.

Dimitri moves up, his knees still on either side of Claude’s hips, holding himself upright so that Claude can press his hand between them, looking up into Dimitri’s eye while he slides his finger all the way in in one daring motion. Dimitri’s head tilts back and he opens his mouth as if to moan, but no sound comes out yet, and Claude moves to push a second finger into him, too soon, because he knows that Dimitri likes the burn of the stretch, enjoys the ache that it presses into his body.

“Do you think you can ride me today?” Claude asks, his chin tipped upward and Dimitri nods, his hips already shifting against Claude’s hand. He’s not as practiced at this as Claude is, doesn’t quite have the control in his thighs and core that comes from riding a wyvern, but Claude always finds himself spellbound by the motion all the same.

He gives Dimitri a little more time before stretching him with the third finger, rocking against him as if riding out the gentle waves of the ocean, watching how Dimitri’s lips part to let out a soft sigh of satisfaction when he pushes just a little too hard, presses his knuckles against his rim and teases at the slick stretch of it with his thumb.

Dimitri moves his hand downward then, to pull at Claude’s wrist as if to insist that he’s ready and Claude understands, moves back and uses the gap between Dimitri’s legs and his hip to wiggle his pants and underwear down, flicking them off of his ankle and not really caring where they wind up.

There’s a pause as Dimitri leans forward then, kissing Claude deeply, his tongue pressed into Claude’s mouth and oh, _this_ is worth it, this is why he was so damn happy to finally coax that damn muzzle off, just to feel Dimitri’s mouth on his like this, to inhale his hot breath and slide his fingers along his jaw.

Claude doesn’t say _I love you_. Some part of him is afraid that saying it out loud would make it solid, and he knows better than anyone else that solid things are prone to being broken - but he _feels_ it all the same, and he thinks that Dimitri understands, because Dimitri never says it either.

Then again, Dimitri never says much of anything.

When Dimitri pulls back, he does so with one hand and uses his other to reach down between his legs to grip at Claude’s cock, slicking him with the remnants of the oil and positioning him so that when he rolls his hips, Claude breaches him in a nice, easy slide.

It punches a stuttered gasp out of Dimitri’s throat and Claude bites his lip at the sensation of warmth and heat and the knowledge that he’s inside him, that Dimitri is his and he’ll never be anyone else’s, not like this.

Slowly, Dimitri sinks until his ass is flush against Claude’s hips, and he simply holds him there for a moment, breathing through the shock and stretch of the pain, letting it push into pleasure and reaching for Claude’s chest to brush his thumb along that damned scar again.

Claude doesn’t even want to tell him to stop, he just wants - he wants -

“You feel so good,” he tells him, shifting his hips just slightly, pressing up into him, “always so good around me. You belong here, with me.”

Dimitri nods, using his hand on Claude’s chest for balance as he slowly pulls himself up, only to rock back down again, tentatively testing the waters, seeing how much it hurts. When he finds that he likes it, he does it again and again, a little faster and it’s all Claude can do to hold onto his hips and guide him with his own motions.

And it’s true - he feels _amazing_ around him, hot and slick and like home, like everything in his life has lead him to this, and if they both had to lose a war and come out the other side as sharply broken things just for _this_ , then Claude thinks for one traitorous moment, that it was worth it.

It’s worth the scar on his chest, worth Dimitri’s muteness, worth the lives he took, just to be buried inside of him, connected and clinging to him like a life raft in a storm. He doesn’t know if Dimitri feels the same way and he doesn’t want to know: all that matters is _this_.

“Damir,” he chokes out when Dimitri leans forward in a particularly hard thrust, picking up the pace, balancing on his knees to raise and lower himself onto Claude’s cock, “fuck - I’m not going to last long with you doing that.”

Dimitri doesn’t smile, though in his eye he looks a little amused, and Claude arches against him, one of his hands on Dimitri’s hips sliding toward his cock and wrapping his fingers around it, stroking, wanting to give him pleasure as well.

It leaves Dimitri bending over him, his mouth open and Claude can see his tongue inside, just behind parted lips, and he takes a deep breath, closing his eye and leaning until his lips are pressed against Claude’s ear.

“My name.”

His voice is hoarse with disuse, soft, and Claude has heard it a small handful of times since taking the muzzle off, but each time feels like a gift. This is no different and Claude whimpers up into him, thrusting upward just to hear the clutched inhale in Dimitri’s throat, still next to his head.

He wants to tell him - _no, it’s too risky, even now there could be servants in the hall with their ears pressed to the door, even now there could be spies on the balcony, even now someone could hear me say it_ \- but Dimitri so rarely speaks, and it’s even rarer that he makes any sort of requests at all and so Claude fists a hand in his dark hair and jerks his head over, so that he can say it in Dimitri’s ear this time.

“Dimitri,” he whispers, barely audible as he thumbs over the slit of his cock, “you like that?”

Dimitri’s body tightens around him and Claude knows that it won’t take much at all, for either of them. He wants to flip them over, to pound into Dimitri like they both enjoy, but he doesn’t want to take his mouth away from his ear, doesn’t want to have to pull away from him and so he says it again, his voice a low growl.

“I would fuck you every day just to hear your breath hitch like this. I love your mouth, your voice, I want to take you with me, _fuck_ , I want you to be kneeling next to my bed when I come back, hard and desperate from not touching yourself. Dimitri. _Dimitri_.”

That’s all it takes. Dimitri moans, his body tightening even more, and then he’s coming hard, making a mess of Claude’s fingers as he curls over him, his hips jerking with each pulse, and Claude can do nothing but follow him down into that spiral of pleasure that makes his mind go blissfully blank for a handful of moments.

He releases deep into Dimitri’s ass, arching up off of the bed, tearing his mouth away from the other man’s ear so that he can look upward toward the ceiling and _goddess_ he is going to miss this.

It’s only for a few days. It won’t be long at all.

Dimitri whines against him when it’s over, shifting, uncomfortable, and Claude winces as his over-sensitive cock slips out of him along with a dribble of his spend. Dimitri seems content to just lay over him, nuzzled against his collarbone and when Claude slips his hand out from between them and still finds it messy, he brings it to Dimitri’s mouth and watches idly as Dimitri licks his own come from Claude’s hand.

“Good boy,” he tells him, petting along Dimitri’s hair with his other hand, nestled in the bed with him and feeling warm, more secure than he’s felt in awhile.

Someone could have overheard, but it isn’t likely. He’ll have to take more precautions next time, particularly now that he knows that uttering Dimitri’s name can send him over the edge like that. Claude curls against him, leaning down for a small kiss to Dimitri’s hairline, and twists his fingers in his hair.

“I’ll lock you in here,” he promises softly, letting his eyes slip closed, “my princess in a tower. I’ll have books and food brought to you... just stay, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

Dimitri nods mutely against his chest and Claude smiles at the agreement, already looking forward to his return.

**Author's Note:**

> For all that I really wanted to write the Epilogue to Sharply Broken Creatures, this one was weirdly difficult for me to get out. I hope it still reads okay.
> 
> Check out my twitter for more Dimiclaude (and other ships) content! [@unraelated](twitter.com/unraelated)


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